Many are aware that the low-GI industry revolves around the claim that low-GI carbohydrates - GI 55 and under - are good for your health while those above GI 55 supposedly are bad.
So everyday boiled potatoes are deemed borderline evil - suffering up to triple-figure GI readings - despite the fact that they score very favourably on the (more important?) measure of "satiety" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104 ).
Importantly, it turns out that the “sweet poison” half of table sugar - fructose - has a super-low GI of 19, towards the very bottom of the GI scale. Fructose is super-low GI so it must be a “good" food, right?
And if any processed food product is not low GI, then just add fructose because adding fructose is the recipe for a lower GI reading. Food companies keen to get on board the Low-GI train have an incentive to add fructose, to make processed food lower GI and less healthy in the process.
How low on the GI scale would you like your manufactured food product, Sir? 54? 53? 45? 40? Tell me when to stop pouring! Check out the sweet-as low GIs of high-added-fructose “Coca Cola”, "Milo", “Snickers Bar”, "Ice Cream", “Cake” in a search at http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php .
The fact that fructose has a super-low GI of 19 is a profound flaw in the "GI story". This fundamental flaw is the awkward bit the low-GI industry avoids mentioning like the plague.
Awkwardly, if super-low-GI fructose turns out not to be “just another carbohydrate”, but as harmful as Lustig, Gillespie and a growing nucleus within the global scientific community believe – that in modern doses it is driving global obesity and diabetes – the low-GI industry will have been completely wrong on the thing that matters most. (Maybe set up a Google "alert" for fructose and watch it happen?)
Someone unkind might then say that the low-GI school at the University of Sydney had spent decades seeking to identify “good carbs” and “bad carbs”, yet somehow managed not to identify the only profoundly bad carbohydrate – fructose.
In any case, incentives matter, so it must be noted that the low-GI industry has a strong incentive to sound certain that sugar/fructose is not a problem, and to dismiss the idea that modern doses of super-low-GI fructose are a major driver of global obesity, diabetes and other self-inflicted “diseases of affluence”.
And that’s what the low-GI industry did – for whatever reasons – when it published its spectacularly wrong but nevertheless high-profile Australian Paradox paper in the incompetently peer-reviewed “journal” Nutrients (see #10 and # 11 at http://www.australianparadox.com ).
For the low-GI industry, the good news is that the most-popular carbohydrate in our food supply – added fructose – also is pretty well the lowest-GI carbohydrate. The bad news is that a growing nucleus of global scientific opinion considers super-low-GI fructose to be the primary driver of the global obesity and diabetes epidemic (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all ).
The likelihood that the low-GI industry would tend to contract or collapse if modern doses of super-low-GI fructose/sugar came to be viewed widely by consumers as a major health hazard represents a serious conflict of interest for the high-profile low-GI industry.
At the same time that evidence against super-low-GI fructose has been accumulating, the low-GI industry has been very active in the public debate downplaying publicly the extent to which sugar/fructose is a health hazard.
The low-GI industry’s conflict of interest boils down to this:
(i) It matters for the prosperity of the low-GI industry that super-low-GI fructose - mixed into tens of thousands of processed foods - remains widely perceived by consumers as safe to eat.
(ii) Low-GI researchers have been high profile in claiming low-GI fructose is safe in usual modern doses.
(iii) There is growing evidence that modern doses of fructose added to processed foods are a key driver of obesity, diabetes and other “diseases of affluence”.
In my opinion, the general public should know about (i) when interpreting (ii).
Just as it turned out to have been a good idea to be sceptical of the tobacco industry’s assurances that smoking is not a health hazard, the University of Sydney, the media and everyday Australians looking for reliable dietary advice need to be aware that the low-GI industry has a strong - indeed, existential - interest in communicating the claim that added sugar in modern doses is not a problem.
Thus the low-GI industry cannot be treated simply as an objective observer in any debate involving sugar/fructose and health issues. It has a serious yet still undisclosed conflict of interest because – given the ubiquity of super-low-GI fructose in today’s food supply - “Sugar is not the problem” must be the low-GI industry’s “party line”.
All this and more can be read in more detail at http://www.australianparadox.com/
Best wishes,
Rory Robertson
So everyday boiled potatoes are deemed borderline evil - suffering up to triple-figure GI readings - despite the fact that they score very favourably on the (more important?) measure of "satiety" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104 ).
Importantly, it turns out that the “sweet poison” half of table sugar - fructose - has a super-low GI of 19, towards the very bottom of the GI scale. Fructose is super-low GI so it must be a “good" food, right?
And if any processed food product is not low GI, then just add fructose because adding fructose is the recipe for a lower GI reading. Food companies keen to get on board the Low-GI train have an incentive to add fructose, to make processed food lower GI and less healthy in the process.
How low on the GI scale would you like your manufactured food product, Sir? 54? 53? 45? 40? Tell me when to stop pouring! Check out the sweet-as low GIs of high-added-fructose “Coca Cola”, "Milo", “Snickers Bar”, "Ice Cream", “Cake” in a search at http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php .
The fact that fructose has a super-low GI of 19 is a profound flaw in the "GI story". This fundamental flaw is the awkward bit the low-GI industry avoids mentioning like the plague.
Awkwardly, if super-low-GI fructose turns out not to be “just another carbohydrate”, but as harmful as Lustig, Gillespie and a growing nucleus within the global scientific community believe – that in modern doses it is driving global obesity and diabetes – the low-GI industry will have been completely wrong on the thing that matters most. (Maybe set up a Google "alert" for fructose and watch it happen?)
Someone unkind might then say that the low-GI school at the University of Sydney had spent decades seeking to identify “good carbs” and “bad carbs”, yet somehow managed not to identify the only profoundly bad carbohydrate – fructose.
In any case, incentives matter, so it must be noted that the low-GI industry has a strong incentive to sound certain that sugar/fructose is not a problem, and to dismiss the idea that modern doses of super-low-GI fructose are a major driver of global obesity, diabetes and other self-inflicted “diseases of affluence”.
And that’s what the low-GI industry did – for whatever reasons – when it published its spectacularly wrong but nevertheless high-profile Australian Paradox paper in the incompetently peer-reviewed “journal” Nutrients (see #10 and # 11 at http://www.australianparadox.com ).
For the low-GI industry, the good news is that the most-popular carbohydrate in our food supply – added fructose – also is pretty well the lowest-GI carbohydrate. The bad news is that a growing nucleus of global scientific opinion considers super-low-GI fructose to be the primary driver of the global obesity and diabetes epidemic (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all ).
The likelihood that the low-GI industry would tend to contract or collapse if modern doses of super-low-GI fructose/sugar came to be viewed widely by consumers as a major health hazard represents a serious conflict of interest for the high-profile low-GI industry.
At the same time that evidence against super-low-GI fructose has been accumulating, the low-GI industry has been very active in the public debate downplaying publicly the extent to which sugar/fructose is a health hazard.
The low-GI industry’s conflict of interest boils down to this:
(i) It matters for the prosperity of the low-GI industry that super-low-GI fructose - mixed into tens of thousands of processed foods - remains widely perceived by consumers as safe to eat.
(ii) Low-GI researchers have been high profile in claiming low-GI fructose is safe in usual modern doses.
(iii) There is growing evidence that modern doses of fructose added to processed foods are a key driver of obesity, diabetes and other “diseases of affluence”.
In my opinion, the general public should know about (i) when interpreting (ii).
Just as it turned out to have been a good idea to be sceptical of the tobacco industry’s assurances that smoking is not a health hazard, the University of Sydney, the media and everyday Australians looking for reliable dietary advice need to be aware that the low-GI industry has a strong - indeed, existential - interest in communicating the claim that added sugar in modern doses is not a problem.
Thus the low-GI industry cannot be treated simply as an objective observer in any debate involving sugar/fructose and health issues. It has a serious yet still undisclosed conflict of interest because – given the ubiquity of super-low-GI fructose in today’s food supply - “Sugar is not the problem” must be the low-GI industry’s “party line”.
All this and more can be read in more detail at http://www.australianparadox.com/
Best wishes,
Rory Robertson
